Self-Determination Theory in HCI : Shaping a Research Agenda

Self-determination theory (SDT) has become one of the most frequently used and well-validated theories used in HCI research, modelling the relation of basic psychological needs, intrinsic motivation, positive experience and wellbeing. This makes it a prime candidate for a ‘motor theme’ driving more integrated, systematic, theory-guided research. However, its use in HCI has remained superficial and disjointed across various application domains like games, health and wellbeing, or learning. This workshop therefore convenes researchers across HCI to co-create a research agenda on how SDT-informed HCI research can maximise its progress in the coming years

Biharmonic curves and surfaces

Bu çalışmada IRn deki harmonik ortalama eğrilikîi eğriler ve yüzeyler ele alınmıştır. Bu tür eğriler ve yüzeyler biharmonik eğriler ve yüzeyler olarak adlandırılır. Bu tez yedi bölümden oluşmaktadır. Birinci bölüm giriş bölümüdür. İkinci bölümde çalışmanın ilerideki bölümlerinde kullanılan tanım ve kavramlar verilmiştir. Üçüncü bölümde IRn deki biharmonik eğriler incelenmiştir. Dördüncü bölümde altmanifoldlann normal eğrilik ile normal torsiyonlan ele alınmış ve M c IEn+d altmanifoldunun R kümesine ait olması için gerek ve yeter şart M nin P2-PNS özelikli olması sonucu elde edilmiştir. Beşinci bölüm orijinal sonuçlar içermekte olup bu bölümde, H-normal torsiyon tanımlanmış ve bazı yüzeylerin H-normal torsiyonu hesaplanmıştır. Ayrıca Vrenceannu yüzeyinin H-normal torsiyonu sıfıra eşit ise bu yüzeyin iki çemberin tensör çarpımı olduğu gösterilmiştir. Altıncı bölümde biharmonik hiperyüzeyler incelenmiştir. Yedinci bölümde normal flat biharmonik yüzeyler ele alınmıştır.In this thesis we consider curves and surfaces in IRn with harmonic mean curvature vector H which are called biharmonic. This study consists of seven chapters. The first chapter is introduction. In the second chapter, some basic definitions and notions which will be used in other chapters are given. In the third chapter, some examples of biharmonic curves in IRn are given. In the fourth chapter, normal curvature and normal torsion of the submanifolds M c IEn+d are considered. In the fifth chapter, some orginal results are obtained, H-normal torsion is defined and some examples are given. It has been proved that if the Vrenceannu surface has vanishing H-normal torsion then it must be a tensor product of two plane circles. In the sixth chapter, biharmonic hipersurfaces are considered. In the final chapter, normaly flat, biharmonic surfaces are investigated

The relationship between avatar-based customization, player identification, and motivation

Player identification is an outcome of gameplay experiences in virtual worlds and has been shown to affectenjoyment and reduce self-discrepancy. Avatar customization has potential to impact player identificationby shaping the relationship between the player and the character. This mixed method study examines theeffects of avatar-based customization on players' identification with their characters, and the effects ofidentification dimensions (i.e., perceived similarity, wishful identification, embodied presence) on theirmotivation in a massively multiplayer online game, Lord of the Rings Online (LotRO). Participants (N= 66) played LotRO either in customization or in no-customization group for ten hours in four sessionsin a lab setting. Data were collected through interviews and surveys. Results showed both time andavatar customization positively impacted player identification with their characters. Player motivationwas predicted in different sessions by different identification dimensions, which shows the dynamic andsituational impact of identification on motivation

Explanations and Interactives Improve Subjective Experiences in Online Courseware

As online courses become more common, practitioners are in need of clear guidance on how to translate best educational practices into web-based instruction. Moreover, student engagement is a pressing concern in online courses, which often have high levels of dropout. Our goals in this work were to experimentally study routine instructional design choices and to measure the effects of these choices on students’ subjective experiences (engagement, mind wandering, and interest) in addition to objective learning outcomes. Using randomized controlled trials, we studied the effect of varying instructional activities (namely, assessment and a step-through interactive) on participants’ learning and subjective experiences in a lesson drawn from an online immunology course. Participants were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk. Results showed that participants were more likely to drop out when they were in conditions that included assessment. Moreover, assessment with minimal feedback (correct answers only) led to the lowest subjective ratings of any experimental condition. Some of the negative effects of assessment were mitigated by the addition of assessment explanations or a summary interactive. We found no differences between the experimental conditions in learning outcomes, but we did find differences between groups in the accuracy of score predictions. Finally, prior knowledge and self-rated confusion were predictors of post-test scores. Using student behavior data from the same online immunology course, we corroborated the importance of assessment explanations. Our results have a clear implication for course developers: the addition of explanations to assessment questions is a simple way to improve online courses

Does a presentation’s medium affect its message? PowerPoint, Prezi, and oral presentations

<div><p>Despite the prevalence of PowerPoint in professional and educational presentations, surprisingly little is known about how effective such presentations are. All else being equal, are PowerPoint presentations better than purely oral presentations or those that use alternative software tools? To address this question we recreated a real-world business scenario in which individuals presented to a corporate board. Participants (playing the role of the presenter) were randomly assigned to create PowerPoint, Prezi, or oral presentations, and then actually delivered the presentation live to other participants (playing the role of corporate executives). Across two experiments and on a variety of dimensions, participants evaluated PowerPoint presentations comparably to oral presentations, but evaluated Prezi presentations more favorably than both PowerPoint and oral presentations. There was some evidence that participants who viewed different types of presentations came to different conclusions about the business scenario, but no evidence that they remembered or comprehended the scenario differently. We conclude that the observed effects of presentation format are not merely the result of novelty, bias, experimenter-, or software-specific characteristics, but instead reveal a communication preference for using the panning-and-zooming animations that characterize Prezi presentations.</p></div